The Commonwealth War Graves Commission says many of the First World War's far
flung battlefields, and their graves, are being forgotten

Britain’s smaller First World War cemeteries dotted around the world risk being overlooked during the conflict’s centenary because of the focus on the battlefields of France and Belgium, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC)says.

With crowds expected to visit graves of men who died at the Somme or Ypres, the commission is encouraging the public to also seek out more obscure graves from the conflict’s “forgotten fronts” in other parts of the world.

The global reach of the war means there are Commonwealth war graves scattered across the globe, but the commission fears they are becoming forgotten.

The commission cares for the graves of Commonwealth forces buried in countries including Tanzania, Chile, Egypt, Ireland, Greece, Italy, Bulgaria and Russia.

Peter Francis, spokesman for the commission, said: “There’s a whole series of battlefields that don’t get visited as much and we think people are missing out. This was a global conflict and there are all those graves and those people’s stories to discover, from Greece to Namibia.

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“In many places our cemeteries are probably the last physical sign of the conflict.

“It’s the large scale battles and huge casualty rates on the Western Front which have overshadowed everything else. But for example some of the first and last actions of the war were in Africa.”

Obscure sites include the lone grave, on the Greek island of Skyros, of the soldier poet Rupert Brooke, whose opening lines of the poem The Soldier have become some of the best-known lines of war poetry.

Closer to the home, two gravestones lie on the uninhabited island of Scarp, on the edge of the Outer Hebrides, where islanders Deck Hand DJ MacLennan and Pioneer D MacLennan are buried. Their two CWGC headstones are maintained by a local crofter and accessible only by boat from the nearby island of Harris.

The Maktau Indian Cemetery in Kenya holds 16 graves from a small British mounted force ambushed and wiped out in 1915.

Mr Francis said: “From the deserts of Namibia to the lush climate of Buff Bay in Jamaica; from an isolated grave in the highlands of Scotland to the cemeteries of northern Greece; from the heat of Gaza to the icy mountains of the Asiago plateau in Italy; these places are as diverse as the engagements that were fought and the men and women that took part in them.”

Meanwhile, vandals have burnt wreaths of poppies at a war memorial in Lewisham, south east London, days before the centenary of the start of war. Police said they were studying CCTV footage for clues.